My Business Fights Poverty year, kicked off in Masindi, NW Uganda at the Villages In Action event that is sponsored by Business Fights Poverty. In this photo, I am seated with the local women's group made up of business women in the village. We are sharing ideas on the challenges of running a business in  Masindi. At that event we hosted a TweetUp with @GirlUp which in which 15 year old girls in Masindi chatted to 15 year olds in America and here is how they got on

Having got VIA out the way, news broke that an entire village including businesses in NE Uganda had been wiped off a mountainside due due heavy rain as you can see in the photo above. A group of young Ugandans in Kampala decided to take action to aid the survivors. I helped raise some money here in the UK to support their efforts and this is them bagging supplies to deliver to those who survived

Most if not all of you must seen the KONY 2012 Video from Invisible children. Well whilst they were busy telling tales we at Ethnic Supplieswere taking a different sort of action to support the Women of Kireka, who survived Kony's way in Northern Uganda

Following their escape from Northern Uganda, these women made a living from a quarry in Kireka, just outside Kampala and their greatest wish was to one day have access to sewing machines of their own. Well we made their wish come true and this is them working away!

I hope that means they are happy!!

Most of our work in Uganda has focused on a small village called Ruhanga in SW Uganda. We have mostly focused on the provision of Social services and this year we started work on a community Health centre, you can catch up on our progress in this post

As the year closes out we have started looking at income generating projects and our first attempt involves the training of local women and girls to repair bikes. There are 10 women and girls currently participating in the group. We hope to expand this next year

So there you have it folk- our year of fighting poverty